As the story of the Obamacare website fiasco unfolds , senior administration aides tell me that the President is `` mad , frustrated and angry . ''

Mad that his signature legislative achievement is stuck at the gate , frustrated that he 's running out of time to fix it and angry that he 's got a second-term agenda now going nowhere . He 's so furious , in fact , that he stepped out of character to vent to an assembled group of top aides , saying he would have delayed the website if he had known it was a mess .

By Thursday , the president was venting publicly . `` Had I been informed , I would n't be going out saying , boy , this is going to be great . You know , I 'm accused of a lot of things , but I do n't think I 'm stupid enough to go around saying , this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity , a week before the website opens , if I thought that it was n't going to work . ''

All of which begs the real question : How could he not have known ?

It 's a real head-scratcher . Most powerful man in the world . Most important issue . Most politically explosive , particularly coming on the heels of the government shutdown . Consider the context : Republicans had just tried to defund Obamacare , and they lost in a heap of public humiliation . So the rollout of Obamacare had to be really impressive , because the Republicans had to be proven wrong .

And yet , as the dry runs continued to produce red flags -- over and over -- the President remained in his steely cocoon . If this were the presidency of George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan , the obvious theories would abound : The chief executive is disengaged . Or incurious . Or worse . But since Obama is none of the above , what gives ?

This much is clear , after speaking with both past and present senior administration officials : No one was really in charge , so no one knew for sure how bad the overall picture was . What 's more , and -- perhaps most telling -- no one wanted even to hint to the President that this techno-savvy administration possibly had a website stuck in , say , 1995 . `` People do n't like to tell him bad news , '' says an ex-White House staffer . `` Part of it is the no-drama culture . ''

Oh , that . The infamous no-drama Obama credo : no panic , no drama . `` No drama is attractive to people , except there are times when people actually should light their hair on fire , '' says one former senior administration official . `` That would have been a very good thing . ''

Indeed . People who have served in top jobs at the White House seem to agree on one thing : a President who wants to get at the truth has to understand the extent of his own isolation . And then establish a zone of immunity for truth-tellers .

That , of course , presumes that the top staff inside the White House knew the full truth . And that probably was n't the case . Again , you ask , how can that be ? Answer : The operation resembled the proverbial blind men and the elephant parable : Everyone seemed to touch a part of it , but no one could really see the whole picture , or disaster coming right at them .

`` It 's not that someone had an envelope with a note in it saying here comes the second-term crisis , '' an ex-top White House staffer says . `` They were thinking there were some bugs , they would be fixed ; these are smart people . ''

They may be smart , but it appears they had no singular leader . No rollout czar . They had health care wonks and tech wonks and political wonks and even a presidential wonk , but no put-it-all-together-and-make-sure-it-all-works wonks .

And maybe , no truth-telling wonks , who would have warned the president that it was a no-no to promise that people could keep their health care policies .

Everyone , it seems , lived in his own silo . And that 's where they stayed .

This is a President , says one admirer , `` who likes everyone to stay in his lane . '' Which begs the question : Whose lane was it to say the website was n't working ? The probability is that the information filtered to a bunch of different people in a bunch of different lanes .

Sure , the stay-in-your-lane theory of operation is important to a well-run White House , but here 's the flip side if it 's implemented too literally : If you hear something outside your purview that is bad , you may not want to report it higher . Why ? `` Everyone thinks if it is n't in my lane , and I talk about it , I 'm being a tattletale , '' says one ex-administration official . `` That would be discouraged as bad behavior in this current White House . '' -LRB- An exception , some point out , ex-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel , who `` encouraged people to contradict each other . '' To put it mildly , Rahm was pro-drama . -RRB-

Which brings us to the President , who is n't . And if you are n't 100 % sure that the website is a mess -- because no one is actually in charge to tell the White House with any certainty -- what is there to bring to the President ? Reports of some bad tests ? Bugs ? Fixes that are being made ?

`` Nobody is trying to create drama , angst and anxiety , '' says an ex-White House official . `` And it 's hard to go in there and say , ` Well , I do n't think this is going to work . ' ''

So , the irony . All the effort to spare the drama created a huge theatrical mess all of its own . The reviews are lousy , and now the unhappy leading man is stewing , centerstage .

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Gloria Borger : How could the President not have known of the Obamacare website flaws ?

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She says Obama prefers a `` no-drama '' White House in which people stay in their lanes

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Staffers are not encouraged to bring the President bad news , she says

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Borger : There was no rollout czar for Obamacare ; everyone stayed in their silo